Ben Higgins may have dramatically called off his wedding to Lauren Bushnell in a tense two-hour episode of "Ben and Lauren: Happily Ever After?" last November, but the two are still very much in love, he insists.
Higgins, 28, took to Instagram this week to respond to rumors that he and Bushnell, whom he first paired up with in the Season 20 finale of "The Bachelor," are kaput.
"No need to respond often to rumors or 'fake news' but the feeling I have in this picture is the same feeling I have for this girl today," Higgins captioned a photo of the couple snuggling on a tropical beach.
"We have entered into a world where rumors will exist we know that," he continued, "but just know as @laurenbushnell celebrates her birthday tomorrow I am still extremely lucky to be able to share life with her and be by her side."
The couple continued their whirlwind "Bachelor" romance in their own spinoff show last fall, and while the series began with the pair happily planning their nuptials, Higgins blindsided Bushnell, 27, by abruptly pulling the plug on those plans.
"I don't want us to rush it," Higgins told Bushnell during a televised therapy session. "There’s still things that we need to know. And I would rather do that now than get into... after a wedding and then, all of a sudden, sit down and be like, 'What the hell did we just do?'"
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In January, Higgins provided an update — of sorts — to Us Weekly.
"I’d love to say that we have a wedding planned, a date planned that I could tell you, ‘Hey this is when it’s happening.’ We don’t,” he said. “People have watched us get engaged but one of the things that we’ve learned post-"Bachelor" is that it’s important to get to know each other too and that’s what Lauren and I want to do."